sketchblob

I’m sorry for anyone this alienates or offends, but I need to get this off my chest.

Every time I see a discussion of “sexual privilege,” I want to share with you what I see in my mind’s eye. This is Burke Burnett (trigger warning for images), who was savagely attacked and beaten on Sunday because he is gay. His sexuality led to him being badly injured - 30 stitches, second degree burns, severe bruises, etc - by four men who were intent on causing him serious harm. And I would like an answer for how that is privilege.

I can come up with lots of points or rants about why as a queer woman, the idea of “sexual privilege” makes me really uncomfortable. But I have one main point that it all comes down to, and I don’t want to argue this discussion at all unless someone can refute this main point.

I’ve never heard a story of a heteroromantic asexual being attacked like that for being asexual. If one such exists in your home state, reader, by all means let me know. But until something like that surfaces, I have a hard time stomaching being told to sit down and accept my “sexual privilege.” I don’t think those wounds on that man are privilege. I don’t think his fear for his bodily safety is privilege. I know what intersectionality is, don’t mistake me - what I don’t know is how the very thing that puts “sexual” queers in danger is somehow a vehicle by which they are privileged. And that idea makes me deeply uncomfortable, because it sounds suspiciously like it is inditing queer people for oppression and othering simply because they are queer.